We don’t want to discount the efforts that went into creating the Apollo spacecraft that took humans to the Moon in 1969, but the real star of the show were the spacesuits the astronauts wore.

The extremes of space dictate that anybody venturing into its – at times – simultaneously icy and fiery conditions wear a specialised suit. For it’s return to the Moon, NASA is going to need suits for its astronauts and it has tapped up Axiom Space to make them.

Axiom Space was selected from two eligible vendors and the order is said to be worth $228.5 million. NASA will still oversee all operations related to the Artemis missions and Axiom Space will need to test their suits in a “spacelike environment” before the Artemis III mission to the Moon.

“NASA is proud to partner with commercial industry on this historic mission that will kickstart the United States building a lasting presence on the surface of the Moon,” manager of NASA’s Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility programme, Lara Kearney said in a statement, “What we learn on Artemis III and future missions on and around the Moon will pave the way for missions to Mars. Spacesuits enable us to literally take that next step.”

Spacesuits are really just spacecrafts that fit around a person’s body. The Model A7L Space Suit worn by Neil Armstrong in 1969 was incredibly advanced. It featured liquid cooling, a portable life support system, protection from solar radiation and even micrometeroids.

There is one major aspect of Moon exploration Axiom Space is going to have to address – lunar regolith.

The surface of the Moon is covered in a fine layer of dust and broken rocks much like the surface of Earth. The trouble is that the regolith on the Moon sticks to just about everything even NASA’s 3D render of the suits shows them stained with the stuff. When astronauts returned from the Moon’s surface, the regolith dusted the inside of the lander causing the astronauts to cough and give them red eyes. Researchers at Stony Brook University found in 2018 that lunar dust killed 90 percent of human lung and brain cells. There are of course caveats to that study but regolith is incredibly abrasive and if NASA intends on exploring the Moon in earnest, it’s dangers must be addressed.

As an aside, the original A7L space suit worn by Neil Armstrong was created by the International Latex Corporation, a division of the company that made Playex bras. You can read more about the suit at this link.

Before NASA can explore space however, it needs to test its Space Launch System which is yet to get off of the ground for an uncrewed mission to the Moon.

[Source – NASA]